A woman in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, was woken by a stinging pain in her ear and a doctor later used tweezers to extract a cockroach, alive and kicking, Western China Metropolis Daily reported.

The woman in her 50s suffered a piercing pain at 9 pm and felt something crawling around inside her ear but fell asleep again. The next morning she went to a hospital and a doctor discovered a live 0.5 cm-long cockroach.

The doctor said September and October are the active season for cockroaches and people should go to hospital quickly if any insect crawls into their ears.